Gault, who had absently taken the colonel's chair, made no response. So the opportunity he had been planning for had come! He felt a sensation of sickening repulsion at the task he had set himself. Already his heart seemed to have begun to beat like a hammer and his mouth felt dry. Without consciousness of what he looked at, his eyes moved about the room and rested on a black coat which was hanging over the back of a chair. On the edge of the table were a pair of scissors, a thimble, and some spools of thread. Viola took the vacant chair near these and put on the thimble. "You'll not mind if I go on sewing?" she said. "I never thought of your coming to-night, and so I was fixing this. It will only take a few moments to finish it." "What is it?" Gault asked, in order to say something, noticing that the garment seemed heavy and difficult for her to handle. "My father's coat--the one he wears every day," she answered. "I was mending it while he had his other one on. He gets fond of clothes, and it's next to impossible to get them away from him." She turned the coat about every now and then, her needle assaulting it, and catching splinters of light as it darted in and out. Gault leaned back, watching her. She bent her face over the work as she sewed, presenting to his gaze the fine white parting down the middle of her head, and the close-growing threads of her hair, here and there transmuted into filaments of gold. There was an air of serenity, of quietness and peace, about her, that seemed to tell of an inner sense of happiness. As he sat back staring at her, and wondering, with that breathless beating of his heart growing stronger, what he should say, she suddenly raised her head and, looking straight into his eyes, said: "What are you thinking about?" Her face, with the lamplight shining full on it, seemed to radiate a soft, pervasive content. She asked the question with the indescribable charm of glance and smile of the woman who knows that her lightest word gives pleasure. The increase in her beauty and attraction which he had felt rose from the consciousness that she was loved. "I wasn't thinking about anything much," he said evasively. "I'd like to sit on here this way, not thinking or worrying or caring, but just watching you." "There is no reason why you shouldn't do it; only it doesn't sound very amusing." "It isn't amusing." "I know it isn't," she said contritely, "and I'm so sorry that I have to do this old coat; but it will be done soon, and then we can talk. Just a minute--just a minute!" She spoke in a busy tone, and went on turning the coat about, jerking at the buttons, and plunging her hands into the pockets.